‘Beauchamp! now I die a glad man.’

’Witness, doctor, she ‘s mine by her own confession.’

‘Uncle!’ Jenny gasped.  ’Oh!  Captain Beauchamp, what an error! what delusion! . . .  Forget it.  I will.  Here are more misunderstandings!  You shall be excused.  But be . . .’

‘Be you the blessedest woman alive on this earth, my Jenny!’ shouted Dr. Shrapnel.  ’You have the choice man on all the earth for husband, sweetheart!  Ay, of all the earth!  I go with a message for my old friend Harry Denham, to quicken him in the grave; for the husband of his girl is Nevil Beauchamp!  The one thing I dared not dream of thousands is established.  Sunlight, my Jenny!’

Beauchamp kissed her hand.

She slipped away to her chamber, grovelling to find her diminished self somewhere in the mid-thunder of her amazement, as though it were to discover a pin on the floor by the flash of lightning.  Where was she!

This ensued from the apology of Lord Romfrey to Dr. Shrapnel.

CHAPTER LV

WITHOUT LOVE

At the end of November, Jenny Denham wrote these lines to Mr. Lydiard, in reply to his request that she should furnish the latest particulars of Nevil Beauchamp, for the satisfaction of the Countess of Romfrey: 

’There is everything to reassure Lady Romfrey in the state of Captain Beauchamp’s health, and I have never seen him so placidly happy as he has been since the arrival, yesterday morning, of a lady from France, Madame la Marquise de Rouaillout, with her brother, M. le Comte de Croisnel.  Her husband, I hear from M. de Croisnel, dreads our climate and coffee too much to attempt the voyage.  I understand that she writes to Lady Romfrey to-day.  Lady Romfrey’s letter to her, informing her of Captain Beauchamp’s alarming illness, went the round from Normandy to Touraine and Dauphiny, otherwise she would have come over earlier.

’Her first inquiry of me was, “Il est mort?” You would have supposed her disappointed by my answer.  A light went out in her eyes, like that of a veilleuse in the dawn.  She looked at me without speaking, while her beautiful eyes regained their natural expression.  She shut them and sighed.  “Tell him that M. de Croisnel and his sister are here.”

’This morning her wish to see Miss Halkett was gratified.  You know my taste was formed in France; I agree with Captain Beauchamp in his more than admiration of Frenchwomen; ours, though more accomplished, are colder and less plastic.  But Miss Halkett is surpassingly beautiful, very amiable, very generous, a perfect friend.  She is our country at its best.  Probably she is shy of speaking French; she frequently puts the Italian accent.  Madame de Rouaillout begged to speak with her alone:  I do not know what passed.  Miss Halkett did not return to us.

’Dr. Shrapnel and Captain Beauchamp have recently been speculating on our becoming a nation of artists, and authorities in science and philosophy, by the time our coalfields and material wealth are exhausted.  That, and the cataclysm, are their themes.